The Trump presidencies have always produced something of a strobe effect. There are so many flashing and pulsating lights — a freewheeling Oval Office press spray here, a Truth Social stream of consciousness there — that sensory overload is a daily problem. Sometimes it is easy to miss, or minimize, the red warning signs that democracy is coming under assault. Right now, though, they are glaring: as bright and unmissable as those golden trophies amassed on the mantelpiece in the Oval Office. The glitzier the West Wing gets, the more pronounced the authoritarian lurch.
“I am not a dictator,” said Donald Trump in the Oval Office last month, a statement which is true. However, authoritarianism is more broadly defined than dictatorial totalitarianism. In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, Harvard academics Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt developed four behavioral warning signs. When a politician rejects democratic rules, “tolerates or encourages violence,” “denies the legitimacy of opponents,” and “indicates a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media.” By sundown on January 6, 2021, the day of the storming of the US Capitol, Trump 1.0 had ticked those boxes. Trump 2.0 has added new categories to that list.
Deploying the Military
This authoritarian lurch presents itself in various forms. There are shades of militaristic authoritarianism. Trump has deployed the National Guard on the streets of the nation’s capital at its most visible and sacred sites, the Washington monument and Lincoln Memorial. He has dispatched US marines to Los Angeles, ostensibly to support ICE agents in carrying out mass deportations, but partly because the City of Angels is a Democrat-run municipality in a Democrat-run state. Last week, a federal judge ruled this troop deployment was “a serious violation of the Posse Comitatus Act,” which was passed in the late 19th century to bar the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. Ultimately, the Supreme Court will decide.
A military strike last week on a boat in the Caribbean Sea killing what the White House says were 11 drug traffickers from the Tren de Aragua cartel may have violated international and maritime law. The State Department has labelled the Tren de Aragua cartel a “terrorist” organization, but that, under international law, does not make them lawful targets. It is also questionable whether using the US military to summarily kill alleged criminals in an extrajudicial manner complies with US law.
Now Trump has turned his attention to Chicago, another Democratic city in another Democratic state. “I love the smell of mass deportations in the morning….” he posted on Saturday alongside what appeared to be an AI-generated meme “Chipocalypse Now”, a play on the 1979 movie, Apocalypse Now. “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” he added, referring to his rebranding of the Pentagon and Defence Department over the weekend.
Anti-Democratic Tendencies
Trump has displayed anti-democratic tendencies. Among his first acts after returning to power was to pardon or dismiss the charges of almost 1,500 people involved in the January 6 insurrection, which sought to overturn the result of the 2020 election.
In July, the president pushed for the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, to gerrymander congressional districts in the Lone Star state to help Republicans gain more seats in next year’s midterm congressional elections. In retaliation, Democratic California is asking voters whether they want to carry out redistricting to boost representation for the Democrats.
Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration has been criticized as extra-judicial and unconstitutional. ICE agents often hide their faces when carrying out arrests and have trampled on due legal process. On his first day in office, with the stroke of his presidential pen, he sought to revoke birthright citizenship to children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants — the constitutionality of which is now being determined by the Supreme Court.
The White House has defied the courts by refusing to turn back planes carrying Venezuelan migrants who were deported under the wartime Alien Enemies Act passed in 1798. Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that the invocation of this centuries-old legislation was illegal, because the United States was not at war or under invasion. Another case for the Supreme Court.
Trump’s War on the Fed
Over the economy, he is exerting more command and control. Last month he became the first president ever to sack a board member of the Federal Reserve: Lisa Cook, an African-American economist appointed by the Biden administration who Trump has accused of mortgage fraud — allegations she denies. To pursue his protectionist tariffs agenda, he has invoked legislation, namely the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, intended for use in wartime or national emergencies.
The use of emergency powers to justify dozens of actions, including the deployment of the National Guard in Washington and his tariff regime, has become a hallmark of Trump 2.0. He has invoked them far more than his predecessors. Since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, presidents on average have declared national emergencies seven times over the course of a four-year term. Since taking office again in January, Trump has already declared nine.
‘Constitutional Authoritarianism’
Much of Trump’s exercise of presidential power, however, fits within the rubric of what might be called “constitutional authoritarianism.” A lot of the executive authority he has sought to wield is constitutional. Grey areas, such as his use of wartime powers in peacetime, will be adjudicated by the Supreme Court, the constitutional referee.
As in his first administration, we are being reminded how the US system relies on norms as well as laws. It is abnormal to see emergency powers used so freely, but that is not the same as saying it is blatantly unconstitutional.
States are allowed to gerrymander their congressional districts. No law bars presidents from displaying banners featuring their portraits from federal buildings. It is just that these kinds of personalized trappings have been regarded as crass and megalomaniacal.
The much-vaunted checks and balances of the US constitution, moreover, are not so restrictive when the president’s party controls both houses of Congress, which is the case right now, and the Supreme Court harbors a majority of justices with an expansionist view of executive power.
Throughout history, the United States has had an imperial presidency, partly because its prerogatives were designed with its first incumbent, George Washington, in mind. Indeed, an irony of the American revolution was that the founding fathers created a presidency with more powers than the British king. It is also worth pointing out that some of the heroes of the American story, such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were accused of being dictators for pushing the bounds of the constitution, and in Lincoln’s case overstepping them.
Trump’s norm-busting leadership style also enjoys considerable popular support. Voters saw what happened on January 6, 2021, but did not regard it as disqualifying. In the 2024 election, he became the first Republican candidate in 20 years to win the popular vote — although his share was 49.8 percent.
Trump is not an American monarch. Nor is he an American dictator. Nonetheless, he is displaying blatant signs of being an American authoritarian.
